Carson Daly is in a curious position these days. He's hosting NBC's highest-rated show, The Voice, while also fronting one of its most under the radar (and most underrated): the late-night talk show Last Call With Carson Daly, now enjoying its eleventh season. (If that milestone slipped by you, you're not alone. The show airs at 1:30 A.M., or, as Daly jokes, "when America is fast asleep.") A Southern California boy, Daly started in radio, interning for a then-unknown Jimmy Kimmel, before moving to New York in 1998 to host MTV's Total Request Live, becoming a neo–Dick Clark for a generation that didn't know who Dick Clark was. Suddenly, the onetime pudgy high school golf star was in a position to date two of the hottest women of the moment: Jennifer Love Hewitt and American Pie's Tara Reid. Now, at 38, he's presiding over another cultural phenomenon with The Voice, while enjoying the stability that comes with a live-in girlfriend, Siri Pinter (a nonactress, for a change), and their three-year-old son. Here, Daly talks about his long, strange trip in music.

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ELLE: Who was your first rock star crush?CARSON DALY: I might say George Michael. I thought he was a girl when I first saw Wham! He was beautiful. But honestly, I think it was Stevie Nicks. My mom had vinyl of Stevie, and she was so angelic. You know how Beyoncé has the fan in her hair at all times? Stevie had that thing onstage.

ELLE: Is it true that as a teenager you bagged groceries for Michelle Pfeiffer?CD: I did. She lived across the street from my best friend, and we played football outside her house constantly. Neither of us liked to play football, but we did it in the hopes that Michelle would drive up in her white Jeep. She lived a hike from the grocery store, but I begged her to let me carry her groceries home.

ELLE: You grew up in Santa Monica and played a lot of golf. You even competed against a young Tiger Woods. Was golf a turn-on for girls?CD: Not at all. When I was a freshman in high school, I got a letterman jacket, which you'd think would be great stock. The jacket had the big S on it, for Santa Monica. But rather than having a football or a baseball on the S, I had a little nine iron. Girls thought it was a flute.

ELLE: Who was the first girl to pay you any attention?CD: It wasn't in high school, boy. Not at all. I was chubby. I wore retainers—headgear, really. I was like something out of that Katy Perry video.

ELLE: When did the tide turn?CD: Let's see...1999?

ELLE: Funny. That's right after TRL launched. Was there a way to tell which girls were sincere?CD: To be honest with you, I didn't really care. Teenage girls would throw themselves at me. But it was a very frustrating time. You know, I'm cursed with morals. I was raised a certain way. I wish I wasn't. I wish I was raised by wolves.

ELLE: You weren't exactly a saint, though. You spent some time at Scores with the Backstreet Boys, I believe.CD: I took them to their first strip club, actually.

ELLE: Do you enjoy a good lap dance?CD: It wasn't even about that. Scores was an extension of my living room. We knew the bartenders, the girls, the owners. It was where celebrities went to be alone.

ELLE: You were engaged to Tara Reid. Any regrets?CD: To some extent, I dodged a bullet. I was getting serious about my career, and she wanted to shoot movies and just party in her time off. That didn't work for me.

ELLE: You later said you were done dating actresses. Why?CD: I realized I'd have more in common with a regular person than with a celebrity. There were values I was more likely to find in a nice, midwestern girl than one who was living on the coast, pursuing fame.

ELLE: You and your mother are very close. Has she given you relationship advice?CD: She has a million little sayings. "Treat them like a lady." "Always open the car door." But really, the way she's conducted her life has been the best example: coming to the entertainment industry from small-town North Carolina, having two kids, and losing her husband and mother in a short time. She raised me; I lost my father when I was five. Those are big shoes to fill.

ELLE: She later remarried. Was your stepfather any help with women?CD: He tread lightly. He had eight kids from a previous marriage. Then to marry this woman with two kids who lost their dad? He wasn't quick with dating advice.

ELLE: You met your girlfriend when she was a writer's assistant on your show Last Call. An office romance! Did you keep it a secret?CD: We did—until we realized we were in love and it wasn't just an office romance.

ELLE: You have a three-year-old son together. Do you feel pressure to get married?CD: Not at all. I think long-lasting, healthy relationships are more important than the idea of marriage. At the root of every successful marriage is a strong partnership. And that's what we have.

ELLE: Do you and Adam Levine ever talk about women over at The Voice?CD: Of course.

ELLE: He seems to date models exclusively.CD: The short answer is: Because he can. I was Adam just a few short years ago. Yesterday, Siri and I were the cool kids, sitting front row at Coldplay. Now we're waiting in line at Target.

ELLE: Your friend Jimmy Fallon famously impersonated you on SNL with the tagline "I'm Carson Daly. I'm a massive tool." Care to refute that?CD: Men often think it's the bad boys who get the hot chicks. But I'm living proof that the good guys win.